Plant pole beans or bush beans was a questions that I asked myself when it was time to plant them in the garden. I didn’t know which one would be best so I decided to plant both. It was the first year in the vegetable garden so I didn’t know what to expect. I planted 6 pole beans and 3 yellow and 3 green bush beans. The pole beans are now 5 feet high now and have not produced any fruit but the bush ones are about 2 feet high and have produced about 50 beans with a lot more fruit getting ready to pick. I’m still waiting for pole beans to flower and produce anything.

Growing pole beans is fairly easy. I started off with seed and got them going. It turned out that the bugs started to eat them even with the necessary precautions. Only about 1 in 3 were transplantable. That left me with a few short so I headed to the nursery to get some small plants that were already started. This worked out better as they were ready to go and I just transplanted them. I used an old tree branches for stakes that I got from my father in law and they worked great. It was perfect timing as I was going to go and buy some stakes so it save me some money. I tied the beans to the stakes with a piece of landscape wire and after that the beans started to grow up the stakes on their own.

Growing bush beans is just as easy to grow but seem to be less work. I planted them in the same row as the pole beans and watched them grow. They needed no stakes. I haven’t done any work to them except water and fertilize. The flowers started quickly and already I have picked enough for two dinners. One thing I like about the bush is they are not very tall. The pole beans are very tall and wide. They take up a lot of room and create shade for the other vegetables.

If you are thinking about pole or bush beans I would suggest bush if you have limited space as I do. If you decide to plant pole beans find an area away from the main garden so they can grow on their own.